Macao Station

Chapter Thirty-Four

‘I thought I heard you talking to somebody last night,’ said the man, without looking up from the shuttle’s console.

Carver almost gagged on his water, struggling to hide it with a cough. He wasn’t sure if he’d got away with it or not. ‘Nah, man,’ he said, wiping his chin. ‘Maybe I was talking in my sleep.’ Silence from the man, who still stared intently into the screen of the console, tapping its touch-sensitive surface with one index finger. ‘I’ve been told I do that,’ Carver added. ‘Vivid dreams. You know.’

The man pinch-zoomed on a section of the screen, mirroring the display on the shuttle’s main window. The shuffling debris of the belt vanished behind a magnified view of a tan-coloured planet, slightly blurred. ‘I should think someone with your history may well have some disturbing dreams,’ said the man critically, peering up into the main screen now. There was a shuddering bang as the shuttle’s defensive mass drivers fired at some rock that had strayed too close. The sound reverberated through the walls and floor, fading away in diminishing waves.

You can fucking talk, thought Carver. He glanced towards the chair where the corpse had sat. The body itself was gone now, though blood had stained the floor and lockers around the chair in great spattered fans of dirty brown. Carver had noticed its absence when he’d gone to get the water from the locker, but the man hadn’t mentioned what he might have done with it. Neither had Carver thought it wise to ask. He looked up at the screen. A fuzzy shadow moved across the image, presumably an out-of-focus asteroid.

‘What’s the planet?’ asked Carver, trying to change the subject.

‘Yuwan,’ said the man distantly. ‘Our local gas giant — the nearest planet to us. A Predecessor world. They found the ruins on one of its moons, Safi-366.’ He didn’t sound hostile at all now, but thoughtful and introspective. ‘They certainly seemed to like gas-giant moons,’ he mused. He indicated the vastness of space with a sweep of one hand. ‘Beyond that, outwards: Vagar, an icy little rock. Then Platini system, just under five light years away. In the other direction, towards Soros: Lillias; CET-11; Viking; Pallos; Hantii. They move around, of course, so they’re not strictly lined up like that, but you get the idea. All dead worlds, never colonised or terraformed. The sort of places no species would want.’ He looked round, his eyes distant and dreamy, twinkling with the reflected lights of the console, as if there were fireworks inside his head. Carver felt the sadness of the night before emanating from him still. He practically smelled of defeat. No wonder your dragon is finished with you.

‘Why not?’ asked Carver, trying to be polite. When was the bastard going to release him? Was the bastard going to release him? Neither man had mentioned the possibility yet this morning. Carver wondered if he had really heard the voice last night, or if it had just been a product of his own exhausted brain. It seemed unreal now, though he remembered feeling very different about it at the time. It had seemed real then, hadn’t it? But he’d taken fader last night, and fader was notorious for inducing hallucinations. Dream juice, it had been called on the streets of Aitama. He wished he’d refused it now.

His current state of uncertainty wasn’t helped by the fact that, regardless of whether he had heard the voice before, or just imagined it, it hadn’t spoken to him this morning. Part of him was immensely relieved by this. Maybe he wasn’t going insane after all. But another part of him wished it would speak again. That voice had seemed so sure, so calm, so soothing — balm to his racked and frightened mind. He remembered falling into a restful slumber, confident that the morning would bring release, relief and revenge. But now. . . now he was not so sure.

So he played the game, being polite and restrained with the crazy dragon-man, taking the crazy dragon-man’s insults, listening to the crazy dragon-man’s bullshit. He remembered the voice saying, You, Prisoner Carver, are to be my new emissary, and shuddered a little. Maybe, if it really was all real, Carver himself was the new crazy dragon-man, the latest edition. Fuck it — whatever, he thought. I just want out of this. I’ll play the crazy dragon-man for the rest of eternity if I can just be free again. His gaze stole to the restraining device stuck to the vertical face of the console. I hate you, he thought at it, lest it might forget.

‘Why would anyone want those places?’ answered the man, turning to face Carver. His face was expressionless. ‘They’re dead.’

‘I guess,’ agreed Carver, unstrapping from the chair and pushing himself into something approximating a standing position. ‘I need the toilet, man,’ he said, which was true. He was almost bursting, in fact. He felt his face flush with embarrassment, a most annoying sensation.

‘You’re wearing a space suit,’ said the man, a little frown creasing his weathered brow. ‘Piss in that.’

‘I don’t want to,’ said Carver, realising he sounded like a petulant child. ‘I don’t like it.’

The man nodded, sighing, politely exasperated. ‘So,’ he said, with what Carver took to be forced levity. ‘Maybe we should let you go — you know, release you.’

Carver felt a grin trying to spread across his face, but he tried to restrain it, aware that it might be a sinister grin, a grin that might betray his secret intentions. ‘Hey, that’d be great,’ he said in his friendliest voice. ‘I’ve worked hard cutting that rock. I mean, I know we ain’t done yet, and I’ll still help. It’s not like I’ve got anywhere else to go, right?’

The man was studying him closely, that dead, vacant gaze seeming to wash over Carver like ice-water. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I guess you don’t.’ He snaked his body out of his own chair and pushed across to the restraining device.

Carver felt his heart begin to hammer in his chest like an engine approaching the redline. He clenched every muscle in his body, trying to control it. ‘Hey, look, thanks for this, man. It’s pretty good of you to let me go.’ His mind was spinning now, in dark and tightening circles, closing in on that grim, inevitable finality like a shark circling closer to its prey: You’re dead, you crazy fuck! Let me go, and you’re dead meat. Go on! Do it! His head was throbbing again, as if his brain had swollen tight against the inside of his skull.

‘Well,’ said the man, releasing the restraining device from the face of the console and raising it to look into its display, ‘it’s what the dragon wants.’

‘That’s great,’ said Carver, floating closer to the man with nonchalant slowness. ‘Good old dragon.’ He wondered briefly if invoking its name would cause it to appear, to speak to him again — maybe to manifest in the flesh, vengeful and ravenous and angry — but he heard nothing. It occurred to him, also, that the crazy dragon-man hadn’t been speaking to it, either, this morning. No, he reminded himself, that’s because it’s pissed with him. He’s failed it. And now he has to go. Out with the old, in with the new. . .

The man was tapping at the screen of the restraining device now, his gloved fingers somewhat clumsy. He held it up for Carver to see the screen, his face a perfect poker-playing blank. A glowing legend on the screen read NO PRISONERS. ‘Okay?’ he asked. ‘You’re released.’

Carver, still floating closer, felt a euphoric thrill go through his body, almost a sexual pleasure. And the grin was breaking out on his face now — he couldn’t help it any longer — like a predator breaking cover. ‘That’s great,’ he repeated. And it was, wasn’t it? First positive development since he’d been caught on Aitama, what seemed like a million years ago. ‘Can I see it?’ he asked, reaching out one hand for the restraining device. The shadows of the cockpit seemed to lean over him, enfolding and cocooning him. The man shrugged and passed it over. It was a grey metallic box, just small enough to hold in one hand. Heavy. Sharp-edged.

‘Do it!’ hissed the dragon, making him start and almost drop the device. ‘Do it!’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I will.’

The crazy dragon-man tried to push himself away from Carver, but Carver grabbed his wrist and held on. The crazy dragon-man was strong and rugged-looking, but Carver was an absolute beast, almost half his weight again. ‘What?’ asked the crazy dragon-man, his face twisted in confusion.

Carver just laughed — he couldn’t help himself — and hefted the restraining device. Heavy. Sharp-edged. He felt the dragon smile — a vortex in the darkness, a cleft in reality. He swung the metal box, falling in. Out with the old, he thought, as blood flew in a thick scarlet gout. In with the new.